MI ENVIRONMENT Sowing the future of food scrap recycling: Best practices from Emmet County's commercial food scrap program Date: May 03, 2021 The Setting Emmet County is a rural county in Northern Lower Michigan. The population ebbs and flows with the season, following the trail of tourists seeking Petoskey stones along the shores of the Little Traverse Bay or making fresh tracks on the cross-country ski trail. While the population is modest, its recycling program is anything but. The program's parent department, the Emmet County Department of Public Works (DPW) does not rely on tax dollars, instead funding its operations entirely from sales of recyclables and fees for services. The recycling program recovers 60 different materials. Twenty-eight recyclables are collected via the county's 13 drop off sites and their curbside collection service, the latter serving 60% of the county's households under contracts with local townships and municipalities. Another 32 materials are collected for recycling at the county's Pleasantview Road Drop-off Center -- for example mattresses, batteries, and tires. Over 80% of county households use the county recycling program.